If you currently use or have previously used a Magento 1.x store, you'll notice that many things look different in Magento 2. Throughout this book, you'll note from various screenshots that the backend interface is easier to use and rich in new operations features. We'll explore these in later chapters.

While the new UI is pretty slick, it's the under-the-hood improvements that you'll come to truly appreciate in your Magento store. Magento has long been challenged by a lack of speed. Even on servers and systems specifically tuned for Magento, heavy traffic from online visitors, large backend operations (for example, importing, reports, and so on), and inherent code bottlenecks have made many Magento stores slower performers than similar stores on other platforms. At times, it's even made us step back and compare the benefits of Magento against other platforms, although we keep coming back to Magento due to its unique features.

The Magento team focused considerable energy in making Magento faster. At the expense of getting too "geeky", let's explore some of the most important improvements:

People often ask us why we recommend Magento as an e-commerce platform more times than any other platform. After all, there are so many solutions available, many with less startup costs (and many with higher startup costs too).

The key to our recommendation is that as owners of e-commerce businesses ourselves, we know that operating a profitable and vibrant online store is much more complex than many would guess. If you've been in e-commerce already, you know too well that establishing, growing, and managing a web-based retail business can be every bit as challenging as building a brick-and-mortar business. Although the downside is much less than a traditional storefront, e-commerce adds business considerations and processes that are unique to online commerce, especially in today's highly competitive online marketplace.

If you haven't already, let's discuss some of the primary considerations of running an e-commerce business you do or will do and how Magento can help resolve them.

Selling complex products

It would make e-commerce so much easier if all products were alike—if we only sold shoes or backpacks online. Of course, this would make for a very small group of online stores.

Apparel, for instance, is one of the most complex products to sell online from a configuration and presentation aspect. Sizes, colors, collar styles, gender, and so on—so many attributes for each product. Add to this the idea that inventory for each variant may need to be tracked, and you can quickly see the challenges any platform has in providing customers with easy-to-use selections while meeting back-office business needs.

You may want to sell bundles of products, such as a bed linen collection with sheets, pillowcases, and duvets, yet also offer these products separately. This complexity can truly exceed the capability of many platforms.

We work with clients who have tens of thousands of different products and others with many complex product types, such as variants and bundles. Magento's unique and extremely powerful management of attributes and product types is one of the most powerful reasons as to why we prefer Magento as a platform. We have yet to experience another platform that gives the store owner the depth and power to manage products from tractor parts to cleaning products and t-shirts to computers.

Global e-commerce

Of all the popular platforms we continue to review and analyze, Magento remains the leader in providing true global e-commerce capabilities. From the built-in currency conversion updater to the inline language translation feature, Magento is built for global commerce.

Some might answer "courage." In fact, after writing Mastering Magento (also from Packt Publishing), we heard from a lot of readers how they struggled with Magento and how undertrained developers jeopardized their Magento stores with poor coding. Many store owners have less than stellar experiences with Magento, and as a result, Magento has earned a dubious reputation on many blogs and forums.

We would suggest that a better requirement for success is "planning." In fact, planning is the focus of Chapter 9, Security and Administration of this book. If you understand how Magento works and take the time to construct a proper plan to fulfill the requirements of this incredible platform, you'll have much better success.

As a store owner, though, don't expect to install, configure, and design a Magento store by yourself. Unless you have real experience with Magento, it's best to find a professional with strong Magento skills. And, hopefully, you find one that understands e-commerce and not just the programming aspects. The right partnership will ultimately save you thousands of dollars in lost opportunity as well as direct costs. If you already have Magento 2 installed, we suggest giving a copy of this book to your developer, as well, so that both of you are on the same page. The more they know about how you wish to run your business, the better they can help make sure that Magento is configured "under the hood" for your purposes.

If you're building a store in Magento, you're embarking on a wonderfully exciting journey into serious e-commerce. You may be moving from a less powerful platform or migrating from an earlier version of Magento. However you arrived to this point, you'll be using the most advanced open source platform in the world. The power of Magento also gives this platform considerable complexity. This book is created to help you navigate the operational aspects of your Magento store and give you the confidence to build a successful and profitable online business. Magento 2 is more powerful, runs faster, and has more features than Magento 1.x. With this book in hand, you're ready to take full advantage of Magento 2.

In the next chapter, we'll begin this journey from the topmost level: your stores and catalogs.